According to the prevalence of multidrug resistance bacteria, especially Pseudomonas aeruginosa, in which the essential mechanism of drug resistance is the ability to possess an efflux pump by which extrusion of antimicrobial agents usually occurs, this study aims to detect the presence of mexB multidrug efflux gene in some local isolates of this bacteria that show resistance towards three antibiotics, out of five. Sensitivity test to antibiotics was performed on all isolates by using meropenem (10μg/disc), imipenem (10μg/disc), amikacin (30 μg/disc), ciprofloxacin (5μg/disc) and ceftazidime (30 μg/disc). Conventional PCR results showed the presence of mexB gene (244bp) in four isolates out of ten (40%). In addition,25, 50μg/ml of curcumin was used to detect its efficacy with the antibiotics that the bacteria showed resistance towards. Results showed the highest resistance for ciprofloxacin (80%), while all of them were sensitive to imipenem. In addition, the present results show that both concentrations of curcumin (25, 50μg/ml) were effective in increasing the zone of inhibition from zero to 10 mm for isolates towards amikacin. Same result was obtained towards ciprofloxacin, except for an increase of inhibition zone from zero to 7 mm to one isolate (38T) when treated with 50 μg/ml, and finally an increase in sensitivity to ceftazidime was found and inhibition zone was increased from 8 to 11 for the second isolate (42E), which revealed that curcumin potentiates antibiotics activity by inhibition of efflux pump mechanisms that can be related to the synergetic activity between antibiotics and curcumin.
Pharmaceuticals have been widely remaining contaminants in wastewater, and diclofenac is the most common pharmaceutical pollutant. Therefore, the removal of diclofenac from aqueous solutions using activated carbon produced by pyrocarbonic acid and microwaves was investigated in this research. Apricot seed powder and pyrophosphoric acid (45 wt%) were selected as raw material and activator respectively, and microwave irradiation technique was used to prepare the activated carbon. The raw material was impregnated in pyrophosphoric acid at 80◦C with an impregnation ratio of 1: 3 (apricot seeds to phosphoric acid), the impregnation time was 4 h, whereas the power of the microwave was 700 watts with a radiation time of 20 min. A series o
... Show MoreSpectrophotometric method was developed for the determination of copper(II) ion. Synthesized (2,2[O-Tolidine-4,4-bis azo]bis[4,5-diphenyl imidazole]) (MBBAI) was used as chromogenic reagent at pH=5. Various factors affecting complex formation, such as, pH effect, reagent concentration, time effect and temperature effect, have been considered and studied. Under optimum conditions concentration ranged from (5.00-80.00) µg/mL of copper(II) obeyed Beer`s Low. Maximum absorption of the complex was 409nm with molar absorpitivity 0.127x104 L mol-1 cm-1. Limit of detection(LOD) and Limit of quantification were 1.924 and 6.42 μg/mL, respectively.
... Show MoreAlpha shape theory for 3D visualization and volumetric measurement of brain tumor progression using magnetic resonance images
In this work, a vertical pulsating heat pipe heat exchanger (PHPHE) was designed for waste heat recovery, exchanging thermal energy between two air streams in a counterflow configuration. The heat exchanger consists of six rows, each row consists of one pulsating heat pipe (PHP), and each PHP has six turns. The working fluid used in the heat pipe was acetone with fill ratios of 50%, 60%, and 70%. The effect of evaporator inlet temperature at 40, 45, and 50°C and air velocity at 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9 m/s on the pulsating heat pipes consisting of three sections- evaporator, condenser, and adiabatic, whose dimensions were 25 x 25 x 10 cm, was studied. At the same time, the condenser temperature was maintained at 26°C. The system’s th
... Show MoreA newly developed analytical method was conducted for the determination of Ketotifen fumarate (KTF) in pharmaceuticals drugs via quenching of continuous fluorescence of 9(10H)-Acridone (ACD). The method was applied using flow injection system of a new homemade ISNAG fluorimeter with fluorescence measurements at ± 90◦ via 2×4 solar cell. The calibration graph was linear in the range of 1-45 mmol/L, with correlation coefficient r = 0.9762 and the limit of detection 29.785 µg/sample from the stepwise dilution for the minimum concentration in the linear dynamic ranged of the calibration graph. The method was successfully applied to the determination of Ketotifen fumarate in two different pharma
... Show MoreAs a result of rapid industrialization and population development, toxic chemicals have been introduced into water systems in recent decades. Because of its excellent efficiency and simple design, the three-dimensional (3D) electro-Fenton method has been used for the treatment of wastewater. The goal of the current study is to explore the efficiency of phenol removal by the 3D electro-Fenton process, which is one of the advanced oxidation processes (AOPs). In the present work, the effect of the addition of granular activated carbon (GAC) particles to the electro-Fenton system as the third electrode would be investigated in the presence of graphite as the anode and nickel foam as the cathode, which is the source of electro-generated hydrogen
... Show MoreBackground: Due to the variations in tooth anatomy and size among different populations, this study aimed to compare the mesiodistal width of primary second molars in Iraqi children with the mesiodistal width of stainless-steel crowns from different companies. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 220 intact maxillary and mandibular primary second molars selected from boys and girls’ Iraqi children aged 8-9 years collected from different primary schools in Baghdad city. The mesiodistal dimensions of the selected teeth and the available maxillary and mandibular stainless-steel crowns from three different companies were measured by using a 3-D scanner, and then the whole measurements were calculated usin
... Show MoreAbstract: The power and the size of the final spot of the laser beam reaching the target are very important requirements in most of the laser applications and fields such as medical, military, and scientific, so studying laser propagation in the atmosphere is a very important topic. The propagation of the laser beam through the atmosphere is subject to several attenuation processes that deplete the power and expand the beam. Through the simulation results of the free electron laser within the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum (400-700nm), it was found that the attenuation increases with decreasing wavelength. Laser propagation in the presence of rain and snow leads to a very large loss of power compared to propagation i
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